Building Enhancement Project

In 2016, our Fellowship embarked on the “Our Shared Future” building enhancement project and undertook a capital campaign to fund it. This included detailed assessments of our Fellowship’s needs for expanded social hall space, and multiple upgrades to our existing building. As part of this, we used various Fellowship-wide processes to insure maximal inclusiveness. At the beginning of this process, a Building Design Team was appointed by our Board of Trustees, and they have been working diligently with a skilled architect and the congregation to develop a plan.

We are now in the second year of our three-year capital campaign, in which we invite you to consider a Capital Campaign pledge (above and beyond your annual pledge) to help to fund our building enhancement.

To read the entire “Our Shared Future” brochure, click here.

Building Enhancement Project Updates and History

BUILDING DESIGN TEAM BLOG

Follow along here for the most recent happenings in the building design project!

ENERGY EFFICIENCY FEATURES
As we work on the plan for our building enhancement, we are keeping in mind our UU principle of respecting the interdependent web of all existence. A concrete way to do that is to make our new structure as energy efficient as possible. At our request, our architect, Brian Melton, has written a memo describing the energy-efficient features embedded in the conceptual plan and many opportunities we may choose for even greater efficiency. View the memo here.

EARLIER MATERIAL (BEFORE THE BLOG WAS STARTED)
Did you miss the building newsletters? No problem, you can read them here!

At our Cottage Meetings for the Capital Campaign, questions sometimes arise that the presenters aren’t able to answer. We have been collecting these questions, and answers are now availableHERE. We will update this document periodically as new questions come in.

*Answers in the first set written by Chris Bentley (CB), Carl English-Young (CEY), Shikha Gottfried (SG), and Jeff Susor (JS).

The Board of Trustees update on the Building Enhancement Project

By Carl English-Young

The questions before the Board revolved around the estimated cost of the conceptual plan presented to the congregation on December 11 and the goal to be set for the capital campaign. After discussion of the features of the conceptual plan, the Board asked the Building Design Team to set up a meeting between the architect, the Board and the Capital Campaign Committee. A conference call was held on Thursday, January 19, and the architects presented information about possible phasing of the project and a rough estimate of costs. In this conversation, we heard what we needed to hear: That there is a way forward, which is in the range of what we can afford. It will not be the full vision presented in December, but it will be a step in that direction, which focuses on our highest priorities. It will include building some additional space and renovating some existing space. On Monday, January 23, the Board agreed to keep moving forward in this direction, and to proceed with the capital campaign to fund the project.

Our Shared Future: One Stewardship Campaign, With Multiple Purposes

By John Bailey, Herky Gottfried, and Shikha Gottfried, Campaign Co-Chairs

Each year we ask the members and friends of our congregation to sustain our mission in the year ahead. Your generous support of our annual stewardship campaign supports the daily work of our Fellowship and allows us to make our values concrete by gathering together as a liberal religious community, undertaking shared action, forming ourselves and the next generation through religious exploration, and ministering to one another in times of celebration and need. This year we will be asking people for additional consideration, as some of the opportunities before us extend beyond just the 2017-18 budget year. The 2017 stewardship campaign will kickoff on February 12 and will invite people to consider the full range of support that healthy congregations need to thrive:

1. Your Annual Pledge is our single most important source of support and nothing else we will be talking about in the campaign is more important than your continued generous contribution to our operating budget.
2. In times of special need, congregations often undertake a Capital Campaign to invite added support for a dedicated purpose over multiple years. This year we will be asking people to consider a three-year pledge above and beyond your annual pledge to help fund the transformation and improvement of UUFC’s facilities. Capital pledges will be payable any time between now and June 30, 2020.
3. Finally, Legacy Gifts, whether in the form of bequests, charitable annuities, or other transfers of appreciated property, provide an impact beyond an individual’s lifetime. Past gifts established our endowment and a bequest from Rita McDonald funded the 2006-07 renovation of the RE wing.

We face important questions about how we equip ourselves to support existing and future work, both programmatically and with adequate facilities. The 2017 stewardship campaign is intended as a chance for us to wrestle with those possibilities together – where we are headed and what resources are available to take us there. In the weeks ahead, we – along with many, many fellow volunteers – will do our best to share a vision for possibilities, invite dialogue and debate, answer the many questions on people’s minds, and invite your generous response to sustaining our Fellowship.

January 2017

Stewardship Campaign

The Fellowship is in the early stages of planning a special 2017 stewardship campaign that will encourage members and friends to support both the 2017-18 operating budget and the improvement and expansion of our facilities. Teams of volunteers are planning activities to ensure that people are prepared to make an informed, considered decision about their support for the Fellowship when we conclude the campaign in March.

The Communications Team will publish a third special newsletter in early January detailing aspects of the conceptual design for our facilities presented by Di Loreto Architecture on December 11.

The Events Team is recruiting over two dozen Cottage Meeting hosts to provide opportunities to learn more about the Fellowship’s plans for the future and to have questions and concerns addressed.

The Ambassadors Team will meet in early January to plan outreach efforts and identify questions we need to clarify prior to kicking off the campaign.

Additional work is underway by the Children and Families, Inspiration, and Gratitude Teams as we near our scheduled February 12 Campaign Kickoff.

December 2016

Update from the Building Design Team

Since this past spring we have spent many hours learning from our congregation members about how our building structure and site could be enhanced with the goals of increasing our capacity to gather in community, comfort, service and activism. This beloved space is truly both a home and a refuge for our congregation in an ever changing world.

More recently, our committee has had the exciting experience of witnessing our DiLoreto architecture team transform the many ideas we gathered into design concepts for us to consider as they work towards creating an overall schematic design for our site.

We hope as many of you as possible will be able to attend their presentation of some preliminary ideas on Sunday, December 11th. This will be an opportunity for us to hear how our congregation priorities as well as our current building structure informed their design decisions. It will also be a time to ask questions and give further feedback.

We will gather in the Sanctuary at 12:00-1:30 PM for this presentation. Because we have renters using our facility starting at 2 PM, Rev McAllister will be tightening the timeline of the second service to allow enough time with our architects.

Lunch and activities for children who are elementary age and younger will be provided. Please contact Michael Molk at 541-752-5218 ext. 225 or email him at molk@uucorvallis.org to let him know the number and ages of children who will be attending. We invite middle school and high school youth to attend and participate in the meeting.

Volunteers met for the first time October 18 to begin planning UUFC’s 2017 stewardship campaign. This year’s campaign will be different than previous ones in that we will be inviting members and friends to consider two separate financial commitments – one to support the daily life of the Fellowship and one to fund the building project currently being developed.

Six teams will be working on various aspects of our campaign between now and Spring 2017. To learn more about volunteer opportunities, contact one of the leaders below:

Mark your calendars for Sunday, September 25, for a workshop at the Fellowship with our architect, Chris DiLoreto, from 1:30 to 3 pm. Everyone is invited for a structured process that will help us clarify our needs and communicate to our architect the goals and requirements of our Building Enhancement Project. The proven and thorough workshop process is one of the reasons that the Building Design Team recommended we hire this architecture firm. In addition, our Capital Campaign consultant, Jeff Susor, will be present and available to answer questions. Jeff will also be meeting with John Bailey, Capital Campaign Chair, and others interested in volunteering for the campaign.